Tupperware: The Promise of Plastic in 1950s America

From Wonder Bowls to Ice-Tup molds to Party Susans, Tupperware has become an icon of suburban living. Invented by Earl Tupper in the 1940s to promote thrift and cleanliness, the pastel plasticwares were touted as essential to a postwar lifestyle that emphasized casual entertaining and celebrated America's material abundance. By the mid-1950s the Tupperware party, which gathered women in a hostess's home for lively product demonstrations and sales, was the foundation of a multimillion-dollar business that proved as innovative as the containers themselves.